Today is the day! I get on the plane at 10:45 pm and arrive in Salt Lake City, Utah at 7:45 PM the same day. I love going back across the International dateline. It’s kinda like having a time turner from Book 3 of the Harry Potter series.

Before I return home and embrace my life in America, I thought I would take a moment to talk about my time here in New Zealand. New Zealand has been my home for the past year. Even though this experiment and adventure didn’t turn out the way my wife and I thought it would, I will continue to have warm fuzzy memories of the time I spent here. So I thought I would dedicate this post to New Zealand and the things I will miss now that I am leaving the place of my wife’s childhood and my home for the last year.

The Location

New Zealand is a primarily two islands just south-east of Australia. The location allows it to have mountains, beaches, large cities, and acres of farmland all really close to each other. There is no wonder that so many movies are made here. It has so many of those wonderful locations that movies look for but all in that same country. Everyone is near a beach here in NZ. Several times, my father-in-law took my family out on his boat and we would anchor at a new beach every day and swim. The trout fishing I did in the states has nothing on fishing for snapper out in the ocean. My wife said that this is where God hid the Garden of Eden and I believe her.

The Food

They have food here in New Zealand that you do not get in America. First of all there are the Bakeries full of Delicious meat pies and sausage rolls. Then you have the plethora of Takeaway Chinese and fish ‘n’ chip shops every where you go. Finally, the cookies and candies that you can only find in New Zealand are to die for. Tim tams, Toffie pops, squigles, Perky nanas, Pineapple lumps, mallow puffs. The list could go on for a whole post! It’s going to be amazingly difficult to get these products in America.

The People

We have made some wonderful friends here and I will miss them all, but even more than that I will miss my in-laws. I really do have wonderful parents-in-law who would help us all the time. Many of my wife’s siblings are just starting to have children and one just got engaged over christmas. All these new events will happen with out us. We are going to miss so much. One of my wife’s older sisters was another mother to my children. My kids will miss her, especially my youngest. He wont know what to do with himself if he can’t go up and bang on her door to let her know he wants to hang out. One of my wife’s other sisters and her husband have promised to come over once a year. I really do hope that they will. We are going to miss everyone here so much

The Future

Now that my journey here in New Zealand is coming to a close (for now at least). All I can do is look to the future. For the purpose of this blog, it means I am going to be in a position to use my spanish much more. Radio, television, and people themselves will be speaking in Spanish much more than before. I can no longer hide behind my location. I need to go out and speak and perfect this spanish! Si se puede!

Thankyou, all who read my blog. Some of the fun of being an american, living in New Zealand, and learning spanish no longer will apply. Even so, I hope that you will all continue to help me as I start this new leg of my journey in America. Thanks again! Nos Vemos!

4 responses to “The things I will miss about New Zealand”

Going back to the US is such a big move. I hope your wife settles in (I don’t recall hearing if she’d lived there before). And I agree with her wholeheartedly. I tend to call NZ ‘God’s Country’ (even though I’m not religious). New Zealand is awe-inspiring. And with all my travel, no other country comes close.

Being jerked away from New Zealand was one of the huge disappointments of my young life. So much so that at 14 I felt that it was the tragedy of my young life. I still miss it.

Yeah we spent almost all of our married life in the states so it was a hard move to move back to NZ, It is going to forever be something we are torn between. I love both countries, but it does feel like more is happening in NZ right now.

But we don’t always get to choose everything that happens. Luckily the place we are moving back to is a place where we have family and friends. It will be nice!

You should really find a chance to come down to NZ and see what it’s like. I’m sure much has changed. It is still one beautiful set of islands! With perfect weather all year long.

Very hard. My wife briefly thought of one of us going seperately to get things going, but that was going to be way to difficult for the family. I don’t think I have been away from my family for more than a night.